


Daily Lives of Midorijima Boys

by draagonfly



Series: Midorijima University [2]
Category: DRAMAtical Murder - All Media Types
Genre: M/M, Sibling Incest, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-16
Updated: 2015-06-28
Packaged: 2018-04-04 17:47:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,631
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4147071
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/draagonfly/pseuds/draagonfly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is essentially going to be my dumping grounds for anything stupid, fluffy, and not relevant to the main plot(?) of my College AU.</p><p>May or may not change the rating in future chapters.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. kiss me it's christmas (and i need an excuse)

**Author's Note:**

> More College AU!! There's no real time-line or anything besides this happens after the whole photography mess.  
> Also for anyone not familiar, 200-level courses are typically 2nd year college classes. So not as broad as an Intro, but not as rigorous as an upper level class. In case, you know, you were curious.
> 
> I saw an OTP prompt about Christmas in July and decided to do it. So I did. And here it is.  
> Also no editing or anything done, so I apologize for mistakes.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They said we're celebrating and to buy decorations, but no one specified what kind.

Aoba wondered if he could legitimately go bald from stress. He’d heard the expression before, but he wasn’t sure if there was any truth behind it or if it was just a thing people said. He made a mental note to ask Koujaku later. Though at the rate he was going, he’ll have pulled all his hair out himself before stress had a chance to do it for him. In other words, it was exam season.

Aoba prided himself on his ability to bullshit his way through most things if he had to, but this class, this one class, was going to ruin all of that for him. It wasn’t that Business Communications was a particularly difficult subject, but the sheer amount of work that was required was astounding. He had a feeling that the professor (Toue Tatsuo; just his name made him sound like an egotistic bastard) assigned more projects and homework than was really appropriate for a 200-level course. Aside from the exam he had to sit in less than two weeks, he also had a 10,000-word research paper and accompanying oral presentation examining the communication procedures and their effectiveness of a local company – luckily Noiz happened to be part-owner of a giant German-Japanese investing corporation, so a lot of the interview portions were taken care of easily. But even with his ‘connections’, it was turning out to be more of a headache than he had anticipated.

Because of his near constant migraines and consequent lack of sleep and less-than-pleasant attitude that past few weeks, he had essentially become a hermit, emerging from his bedroom only to go to class and complete the barest minimum of self-care (not eating only exacerbated his headaches, and Koujaku would have an aneurism if he so much as thought about neglecting his precious blue hair). His reclusiveness meant that he hadn’t really done anything fun since the project was assigned, much to his friends’ concern. Koujaku made a point of trying to get him to go outside once a day, even just to get some air on the balcony. Mink and Noiz were slightly more subtle about it, but the few times Aoba did meet them on one of his excursions to the kitchen or the bathroom they had attempted to engage him in some sort of conversation – though Mink’s attempts rarely got beyond 3 sentences, and Noiz’s idea of conversation usually entailed some degree of innuendo and even worse headache. Aoba tried very, very hard to be short with Clear when he tried to extricate him from his self-made torture chamber, but it was hard when Clear was the personification of the sun itself and Aoba may as well have been a vampire with how often he saw natural light these days.

Surprisingly (or not so surprisingly) Sly was the one who usually managed to convince him to take breaks every few hours, and reminded him to eat and sleep and do other things humans needed to do in order to survive. Granted, Sly’s idea of a ‘break’ fell in the same category as Noiz’s ‘conversations’ in that they both typically involved sex in some form. Not that Aoba really minded all that much. Stress-relief, and all that. Once in a while though, Sly managed to convince him to actually leave the bedroom for a few hours to watch a movie, or take Ren to the park, and it was during those times that Aoba’s headaches took a break as well and he felt slightly less like a zombie than usual. Even Sly’s sass was a welcome reprieve from all the formal business language he had been surrounding himself with.

Eventually however, with four days until the due date for his project and one week until his exam, even Sly couldn’t coax him away from his computer for more than 20 minutes. Aoba was truly running himself ragged, and everyone in the house valued their life enough not to disturb him unless they had to. He wasn’t sure if he appreciated the space or if he was counting on his roommates to keep him from working himself to death. He didn’t have time to dwell on it anyway, and forced his mind back to work.

-

The day of his presentation was comically anti-climactic. It appeared that he wasn’t the only one who burned himself out with the project; most of the class had raccoon eyes to rival his own and there were probably two people in the entire room who paid any attention at all to what he was saying, one of them being Professor Toue himself. He probably could have given a 30 minute lecture on the most efficient way to make a PB & J and no one would have questioned him in the slightest. Even so, he felt good about the results even if no one else appreciated it. Good enough to scrape at least a B, anyway.

So despite his exhaustion and general I-am-beyond-done-with-everything state, he walked in the door to his shared house with a smile on his face, ready to apologize to his roommates for being a pain in the ass.

The sight that greeted him, however, made him seriously question his mental state. The entire first floor looked like a cheesy and overdone Christmas mall display, the kind where you would expect a seedy guy in a barely-convincing Santa suit to be perched on a chair far too fancy to be entirely convincing and local high-school students running around, selling their labor in ill-fitting and uncomfortable elf costumes. There was fake snow littering the carpet (that will be a joy to clean up later), red and green steamers taped haphazardly across the ceiling, and even a small pine tree decorated with what looked like dollar store ribbon meant for wrapping presents. In the middle of it all stood his roommates – all of them, even Mink – clad head to toe in various states of decoration (granted, Koujaku and Noiz already wore enough red and green and therefore were probably the least shocking features of the entire room). Aoba blinked once, twice, three times for good measure, and immediately turned to walk back out the door, hoping that maybe the next time he opened it this stress-induced delusion will have disappeared. He also hoped that his roommates weren’t actually around to witness his serious but brief disconnection with reality. He just needed a quick nap, and everything would go back to normal. He could forget this ever happened and move on with his life.

But before he could make it to the door, Clear (the most decorative of the bunch, unsurprisingly) took a hold of his arm with a grip that seemed entirely too strong for such a gentle person.

“Wait, Aoba-san! Where are you going??” Aoba looked at Clear like he had grown another head, though it wasn’t meant for him necessarily, it was just a reaction to the whole bizarre situation.

“You… everyone… I, what?” He couldn’t find the words to accurately describe his bewilderment. It seemed that he wasn’t delusional, and his friends had really, truly, _honestly_ decorated for Christmas. In May. Despite his unenthusiastic reaction, his roommates all chimed in with a chorus of “Congratulations on finishing your project!” “Congratulations, Aoba-san!!!” “You did well.”

As strange as it all was, he wasn’t really complaining, not when everyone had come together like this for him. Weirder things have happened, he supposed, so he decided to just go with it and enjoy the celebration.

“Thanks, everyone. I really appreciate it. And I’m sorry for being such a pain in the ass these past few weeks… if I can make it up to you somehow, I definitely will.”

Noiz and Sly both looked like they wanted to take advantage of that offer immediately, but one look from Mink made them shut their mouths. For the moment at least.

Aoba was eternally grateful for his friends’ consideration, and he didn’t want to seem unappreciative for questioning it too much, but the fact that their house looked like a bad Christmas card was just too weird to ignore.

“So, I’m really grateful and all that you guys went out of your way to do all this but… seriously, why Christmas?” Koujaku just let out a sigh, Mink glanced to the side, and even Clear looked a little embarrassed.

“Why don’t you ask those two brats over there?” Koujaku glared sideways at Noiz and Sly. Of course.

“Well, the celebration was an idea from all of us, and so we divided the responsibilities as best we could…” Clear began to explain.

“Mink went out to buy the booze, Clear made cupcakes, and I was in charge of cleaning the house. Which left those two in charge of decorations.” Koujaku jerked his thumb in the direction of ‘those two’, which earned him two scowls and a pair of offended teenagers (Sly was technically 21, same as Aoba, but he may as well have been Noiz’s age for how mature he acted sometimes).

Sly spoke up first, “No one specified what sort of decorations to get. It’s not our fault you failed to be more specific.”

“Yeah, old man, don’t blame us when your failing memory makes you forget to tell us things like that.” Noiz added his own input and Aoba watched as a vein in Koujaku’s forehead started to bulge.

“Say that again, bean sprout, I dare you.”

“Bring it on, Gramps.”

Aoba sighed, resigned, while Clear futilely tried to placate the angry five year olds that Koujaku and Noiz became when they fought. It was then that he noticed (belatedly) that not even Ren was safe from the festivities and had been dressed up in a little puppy elf costume, hat included. He looked miserable in the likely itchy and hot fabric so Aoba had mercy and removed it. As soon as the puppy was free he wiggled down to the floor and began to run around and around the living room before coming back to Aoba and pawing at his leg. Aoba reached down to fluff his fur and received an appreciative lick on his knuckles. He smiled. “Thanks, Ren.” Ren barked in response and once Koujaku and Noiz had gotten their aggression out (at the expense of a few of the streamers now hanging pathetically from the middle of the ceiling) everyone migrated to the kitchen to see if the cupcakes went well with the alcohol Mink had come home with.

-

A few hours later, everyone was happily enjoying Christmas in May, as though it was the most normal thing in the world. Aoba was smart enough to avoid drinking for the most part; he didn’t think his physical state could tolerate any more abuse until he had properly rested. He did enjoy a good few of Clear’s cupcakes though, and was pleased to find that Clear had remembered all his favorites.

He was still tired – more than tired, completely drained – but whenever he looked like he was going to fall asleep on the spot, one of his roommates would engage him conversation or smear frosting on his nose for Ren to lick off. Eventually though, he must have really looked dead on his feet, because his friends took pity on him and waved him away for a well-deserved rest.

“Sleep well, Aoba-san!”

“Goodnight, Seragaki.”

“Night.”

“Oi, brat, be a little more enthusiastic would you?”

“Hah? I said goodnight didn’t I?”

“You always act so rudely, I don’t know why anyone puts up with you.”

“Aoba doesn’t seem to mind it though.”

“You….!”

“Guys, please don’t fight anymore!!”

Aoba just shook his head fondly. Even with the fighting, he was glad to be able enjoy hanging out with his roommates again. He hadn’t realized how much comfort he got from being around them. Will a final shake of his head, he made his way upstairs, looking forward to collapsing on his bed and not moving until noon tomorrow.

“Oi, Aoba.” He almost made it to the door, sleep was so close he could taste it… “Hey don’t ignore me, I got something else from the store earlier. You’ll like it, I promise.” Aoba could hear the lilt in Sly’s voice and knew whatever it was, he probably wouldn’t enjoy it all that much at all.

“Can it wait? I’m really tired…” He looked back to Sly, hoping that the bags under his eyes would be enough to convince him.

“It’ll be quick, I swear, just close your eyes for a sec.” Aoba gave in much quicker than he normally would have, but he really didn’t have the energy to argue with his brother right now. He closed his eyes and waited for whatever Sly had in store. “Good, now hold onto my hand, and don’t trip, ‘cause I know how clumsy you are even with your eyes open.” His eyebrow twitched at the insult, but he kept quiet, preserving his energy for the verbal lashing he was going to give Sly if this went sour. “Okay, come this way. A little more, a little more…. Stop!” Aoba did as he was told and if memory served him right, they were standing in the middle of their bedroom. “Okay you can open your eyes.” He did. When he couldn’t immediately find anything unusual, he looked to Sly questioningly.

“Um, am I missing something?” He took a mental inventory of the room: two beds? Check. Mirror in the corner? Check. Clothes all over the floor because god forbid Sly ever pick up after himself? Check. Everything appeared to be in order.

“Wow, you must be tired, or that dumb project fried your brain or something. Look up.”

Up?

Aoba did so, and as he registered what it was he was looking at, he couldn’t help the blush spreading to his cheeks. “Sly! Why did you put that there?! What if someone see it?! Everyone knows what mistletoe is for, you idiot, are you trying to get us found ou – mmfh!”

Apparently Sly had had enough of Aoba’s panicked interrogation, and shut him up with his mouth. It worked pretty well actually, despite Aoba’s protests not 10 seconds ago. Aoba figured one kiss couldn’t hurt, and it’d been a while since they had any time alone, and they would hear if someone came up the steps… Yeah, no point in letting the stupid little plant on their bedroom ceiling go to waste. So he kissed back.

It was a relatively tame kiss, no desperation or teeth or anything Aoba had gotten used to since kissing his brother had become a regular thing. It was fine though. He was at his limit for the day anyway, so when they broke apart Aoba immediately fell backwards onto the bed (Sly’s bed actually), pulling Sly down with him. Sly fell with a squawk and landed half on top of Aoba, head on his shoulder and one arm and leg wrapped loosely around him.

“Thanks, Sly.” He was already drifting off to sleep, and he barely heard Sly respond.

“Merry Christmas, Aoba.” And his world faded to black.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I kinda wanna write Noiz and Sly's shopping adventure, because what losers buy Christmas decorations in May??? These losers apparently.


	2. where's your christmas spirit?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As promised, a short story featuring Noiz, Sly, and a store that really has no place existing in May.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Sort of a) part 2 to 'kiss me it's christmas' aka. where did you even get this stuff?

_‘Go to the store and buy decorations. Something Aoba would like.’_

It was a simple enough request. It probably wouldn’t take more than an hour, including the walk there and back. Really, Sly’s job could have been much harder; he could have been stuck baking stupid little cupcakes with Clear, or cleaning the house with Koujaku. He should be grateful that he had been assigned a relatively painless task. The only thing that he was really unsatisfied with was his shopping partner.

It wasn’t that he didn’t like Noiz – in fact, they got along really well – it was just that he was the most irritating person to go shopping with in the history of forever (maybe he was exaggerating, but only a little). Noiz was even more of an impulsive shopper than Sly was, except that he actually had the money to spend on his frivolous impulses. The result being that it had been nearly thirty minutes already, and they weren’t even halfway to the store yet. It wasn’t often that Sly found himself taking the role of ‘the responsible one’, but here he was, trying futilely to pull Noiz away from the window display of an electronics store.

“Noiz, come _on_ , we’re both gonna get our asses kicked if we don’t get back soon. You already have a fuck ton of computer stuff, let’s _go_.” Sly had to use physical force to tear him away, earning him a glare that he returned in full. At least they were walking again though. Sly looked down at his coil and clicked his tongue. “Shit, it’s already almost one. Aoba’s going to be back at 2:30. We really don’t have time to walk all the way down to the South District.” Another thing that Sly usually didn’t do was care about being late. He never paid attention to the time, partly because it never really mattered, and partly because he never did anything that involved time constraints.

“There’s a party store over there.” Sly stopped walking and looked to Noiz, then over to the area he was pointing at. The aforementioned shop was in a small alley, even for Midorijima’s standards, and looked about as busy as an ice cream shop in the middle of winter.

“There? Really? It kind of looks like a shit hole, even compared to the rest of the island.” Sly wasn’t at all convinced. The store they had been heading to was a larger, more reputable supermarket of sorts, selling everything from groceries to vacuum cleaners. They were sure to find something decently festive there, and decently festive was all Sly could really hope for in the middle of May. But he also wasn’t willing to settle for less, because this was for Aoba, and he really, really didn’t want to disappoint his twin. Aoba had been working himself to death for weeks, and now that he was finally done Sly wanted to cheer him up at least a little. And he couldn’t do that with awful decorations.

“Yo, Sly, you still alive?” Noiz waved a hand in front of his face, and he scowled. He didn’t want to rely on this ratty back alley party store, but they definitely wouldn’t be able to make it to the South District and back in time. His frown grew.

“Fine. Let’s go.”

* * *

Well, the store definitely had party supplies. Just, not the kind they were looking for. “Noiz, what the fuck.”

“What? They said to get decorations, these are decorations, so let’s get some and go back already.” Even though Noiz was outwardly as aloof and unimpressed as ever, Sly had been living with him long enough to recognize the tiny glimmer of amusement in his eyes. Of course Noiz would think this was hilarious.

“Yeah, _Christmas_ decorations. Who the fuck sells Christmas decorations in May?” He skimmed the rows of red and green with obvious judgement. He made eye contact with the guy behind the counter and stared until he admitted defeat and looked away. “You can’t be serious. There must be another place nearby.”

“I checked. The closest one is another ten minutes away. What, doesn’t Aoba like Christmas?” Sly gave him a look that conveyed exactly how done with Noiz he was. He looked at the time again. 1:13. He didn’t really have a choice anymore.

“Whatever. Just grab some stuff and let’s get back.” Sly went to the right towards the back of the store, and Noiz walked straight ahead to start in the middle.

It wasn’t a very big store, unsurprisingly, but it did have a fair selection of holiday themed party accessories. The first row he walked down was almost exclusively things to hang from trees or the ceiling, all of course, in different shades of red or green, and some gold and silver. He grabbed a few different colored rolls of cheap looking ribbon, and something gold and atrociously sparkly, but decided nothing else was worth buying. He moved on to the next row.

This one displayed smaller ornaments, also for hanging, and an impressively large variety of confetti, things that were sure to make a giant mess. Perfect. He grabbed about six bags of different kinds: little red and green stars, slightly bigger gold and silver tree shaped ones, and four packages of what was probably meant to be glittery fake snow. Koujaku was going to have a heart attack – Sly was really looking forward to it.

He met up with Noiz in the next aisle, and he really shouldn’t have been surprised at this point, but he couldn’t help it. Noiz was only carrying two things: a box of string lights meant to decorate the outside of a house, and a small (it was probably only three feet tall) plastic Christmas tree.

“You’re not seriously getting a Christmas tree.” Sly just stared, wondering how Noiz could ever possibly think that was a good idea.

“Yeah. If we’re doing it, might as well go all out.” Well, he had a point… Maybe Aoba would think it was funny, and laugh at it. That would be nice. Sly hadn’t heard Aoba laugh since he started that damned project of his. Maybe Noiz was onto something.

“Fine then. Are you ready? I think we’ve got enough.” Noiz just nodded and walked over to the counter where the guy from earlier was still sitting. Sly started to follow but paused before he left the shelves. Something caught his eye, something _perfect_. He grabbed it and added it to their pile of spoils. Noiz raised an eyebrow but didn’t comment, which was good, because Sly didn’t really have a good reason for buying it, aside from the obvious.

He let Noiz pay for everything (not like he had any extra money to throw away on stuff like this anyway), and they left the store at exactly 1:36, just enough time. They got a few strange looks as they walked back, mostly people who passed close enough to catch a glimpse of what was in their shopping bags. Sly didn’t care though, he and Noiz stood out anyway, and he had no reason to worry about what strangers thought. He even heard one little boy turn to his mom and ask “Mama, is it Christmas already?!” and Sly couldn’t help but laugh. Even Noiz’s lips twitched up a bit as they passed them by.

By the time they made it home it was just after two, and Koujaku nearly strangled them for being so late.

“What if he had come back early?! We barely have enough time as it is and now you brats – “

Koujaku fell silent as he looked into the bags he had taken from them, and at the small tree still in Noiz’s hand. Clear and Mink came in to see what the fuss was about, and upon seeing what Koujaku was staring at, Mink just sighed like he had expected something like this, while Clear clapped his hands and looked like Christmas had come early, which apparently it had.

“Sly-san, Noiz-san, these are so festive! Let’s start decorating right away!” He promptly pulled out two rolls of ribbon and skipped into the living room. “Mink-san! Help me tape these to the ceiling?”

Koujaku was still silent and now moving his gaze between Sly and Noiz. Finally he seemed to accept that there really was nothing to be done about it, and looked exasperatedly to the side. “Well, it’s all we’ve got now, so let’s make it look good. Clear finished the cupcakes, and Mink has the drinks in the fridge. I just finished cleaning, so don’t make a huge mess okay?”

Sly grinned, and even Noiz couldn’t help the visible hint of mischief from his face.

“Please?”

* * *

Not 20 minutes later, all of the decorations had been put up to everyone’s satisfaction. Streamers hung crookedly across the ceiling, and the tree stood in the center of the room wrapped in some of the lights Noiz had picked out. Sly had personally made sure that the floor was covered in as much glittery fake snow as physically possible, and was now covered in it himself. Everyone had taken pieces of the sparkly garland and used it as scarves, belts, headbands, anything to make them look more festive. Sly threw the other kinds of confetti he had chosen all over his housemates, making them sparkle in the light, and laughed hysterically at the absolutely horror-stricken Koujaku when he realized Sly had gotten it in his hair.

He had almost forgotten about his _other_ purchase, but remembered just in time. With five minutes to spare, he ran up to his and Aoba’s shared bedroom with the object and some tape and barely managed to stick it almost directly over Aoba’s bed. Satisfied with his work, he walked out of the room and made it downstairs just as he heard the front door opening. He hoped Aoba liked his ‘gift’.

But, who didn’t appreciate some strategically placed mistletoe?


	3. i'm not a tree hugger so please get me down

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sly gets stuck in a tree and calls Aoba to come save him.
> 
> Featuring Noiz as useless cutlery and Mink as the responsible parental figure they desperately need.

The room was silent except for the occasional scratch of a pen or flip of a page. The library was relatively empty; only a few students tucked into the corners studying for various exams and the librarian at her desk, staring at her computer screen – though Aoba thought it was likely she was just scouring Pinterest for new cake recipes, as the last one hadn’t turned out so well. Yoshie wasn’t a bad person. She was actually very nice and knowledgeable and could almost always find some way to help if someone asked. But she also had an unfortunate habit of trying to be a little too friendly with the students, always gossiping about the latest TV drama or which celebrities were dating and all the reasons why they were a wonderful (or terrible) couple. Even her dog, Clara, took after her owner’s outgoing personality. The one time he had taken Ren with him to school, he had met Yoshie and Clara in the courtyard outside the library and Ren had been so frightened he had to hide under a bush to get her to leave him alone. Yoshie thought it was puppy love. Aoba was mildly concerned about Yoshie’s definition of ‘love’.

Aoba was just about to turn the page to begin reading the next chapter, when his coil rang. Loudly. He jumped about 3 feet into the air and flailed pathetically trying to shut it off. By that point every eye in the room was on him and he put on the most apologetic face he could muster. He probably should’ve gotten kicked out for that, but Yoshie had a soft spot for him (and every other attractive male on campus) so she just waved her hand as if to say ‘it happens’. He sent her a grateful smile and opened up the message that had caused his embarrassment. It was from Sly. It was rare for Sly to contact him in the middle of the day, and he immediately opened the message.

 

> From: The Evil Twin
> 
>  
> 
> CALL ME ASAP THIS IS AN EMERGENCY

 

Alarmed, Aoba quickly packed up his things, likely bending a few book pages and crumpling his notes, and left the building in a hurry. He barely spared Yoshie a glance as he passed, and felt a little bad about it but he had a more pressing issue at hand. An emergency? What kind of emergency? If he was seriously hurt, he would have called an ambulance first instead of texting him, right? And he was obviously able to send messages, so he probably hadn’t been kidnapped. But no amount of logic and rational thinking could quell the panic stirring in his gut. He couldn’t handle it if something happened to Sly. Not to his brother, his twin, his…

He almost broke the door off its hinges with how forcefully he pushed it open, earning him more than a few disapproving glances from faculty and students alike. He had taken barely three steps by the time he had entered and dialed Sly’s number. Not even one full ring passed before Sly picked up.

“Aoba! Thank the gods you finally called, I need your help right now.”

“Sly, what happened?! Are you hurt? Are you at home? Please tell me you’re okay –“

“What the hell, Aoba, chill. I’m fine. I’m not hurt or anything.” Then what…? 

“Then what happened?”

“Well,” Sly began cautiously and Aoba’s concern was immediately replaced with suspicion. A hesitant Sly was usually a guilty Sly, and Aoba wasn’t sure his blood pressure was stable enough to handle this yet. “Um, it’s a funny story really, but, well, I’m kind of stuck in a tree and I need you get me down.”

Aoba was silent.

“Hey… Aoba?”

Aoba took a deep breath. “You’re stuck in a tree.”

Sly almost sounded repentant. “...Yes.”

“And you need me to get you down.”

“Mhm.”

Another deep breath. “Sly.”

“Yeah?”

“I’m going to kill you.”

“That’s not very nice, Aoba.” Apparently in the face of a threat, even a half-hearted one, Sly’s guilt all but disappeared.

Aoba would laugh at all this later on, when they were sitting at the table enjoying a nice meal, courtesy of Clear. Yes, later this would be a hilarious story to tell their friends, how Sly interrupted Aoba in the middle of his mid-term studying and caused a small scene in the college’s library, all because he had gotten himself stuck in a tree. Mizuki especially will get a kick out of it. But now, now with the remnants of his adrenaline-fueled panic still swirling around his bloodstream, and with the contrasting relief at the fact that Sly wasn’t in any real danger, Aoba was angry. He tried very, very hard not to show it, knowing that a rage induced argument would not help the current situation. The damage was done, and he had already begun his journey home. He wouldn’t be getting any more studying done today, it seemed. He spoke through gritted teeth. “Couldn’t someone else, maybe someone who hadn’t been in the middle of studying, have helped you?”

“No one else is home or answering their coil. Well, Noiz is here, but he’s about as useful as a broken spoon.” As if to emphasize his point, Aoba heard vague noises in the background, maybe someone laughing. Okay, he would concede that point. “Anyway, no one else is here and I really don’t wanna spend the rest of the day in this god damn tree. I’ll owe you one.”

“You already owe me about ten.” Aoba tried to sound annoyed, but his anger was already beginning to fade. Sly was lucky he liked him so much. “Maybe I’ll just let you fall to your death.”

“You wouldn’t let that happen to your precious baby brother, would you?” Of course Sly would pull the ‘younger twin’ card on him. He only did that when it was beneficial to him, until it was inconvenient to be seven minutes younger than Aoba. Usually he insisted that it didn’t matter because they were twins. Aoba was used to it by now and pinched the bridge of his nose to rid himself of the last bits of irritation.

“Like I said, you already owe me, but what’s one more I suppose. Fine, I’m heading back. Try not to let your giant ass break the tree.” Aoba figured he was entitled to a jab or two at Sly’s expense, in exchange for the interruption.

“Last I checked, your ass was the giant one. But I’m not complaining, because it looks really nice when we – " 

“Don’t you _dare_ finish that sentence.” Even over the phone, Sly had no problem making him blush up to his ears. “I’m ten minutes away, just hold on alright?”

Sly sighed loudly and Aoba heard the faint rustle of clothes as he made himself comfortable. “Yeah, yeah, I don’t plan on going anywhere in a hurry. See you soon.” And with that Sly disconnected the call. Aoba walked the rest of the way home wondering why his brother was always so ridiculous.

* * *

 When Aoba rounded the corner onto their street, the first thing he noticed was what appeared to be a bright blue birds nest about three fourths of the way up the tree in their front yard. The second thing he noticed was a certain blonde teenager reclining peacefully taking pictures on his coil of said birds nest. He took a deep breath and walked over the two idiots in his yard.

 “Well, I’m here, how exactly do you expect me to help?” Aoba set his bag down next to Noiz and greeted Ren with a few scratches behind the ears when the puppy bounded over. When Sly realized Aoba was there he made to quickly turn his head to speak, but he only got about halfway before he yelped in pain and turned back around. “Sly!? You okay?” Aoba walked around the tree to get a better look at the situation.

“Fuck no, I’m not okay. My hair is tangled in this branch and I can’t look to get it out. Come do it for me,” Sly grumbled, annoyed, and pouted like a five-year-old who got gum stuck in his hair.

“You’re expecting me to climb all the way up there to unknot your hair for you? Are you kidding?” Aoba walked around the tree again so Sly could get a look at his incredulous face without hurting himself.

“Yes, that’s exactly what I expect you do.” He looked at Aoba like _he_ was being the unreasonable one, like it was common courtesy to climb a tree and untangle your brother’s hair.

“I told him I’d throw him a pair of scissors.” Noiz chimed in from his place in the grass.

Aoba’s eyes widened and Sly scowled darkly, almost looking like he would bite Noiz’s head off before he got near him with a pair of scissors. And as much as Aoba knew that just cutting it was the smart thing, the rational thing to do, he also knew that cutting Sly’s hair was about as desirable as cutting off his arm. It just wasn’t something that was going to happen. He cringed at the thought, and subconsciously ran his fingers through his own hair. He may not be as attached to his long hair as Sly, but he definitely didn’t take the thought of chopping it off lightly. “Okay, let’s calm down, there’s no need for that. I’m sure it’ll come undone just fine.”

The comment about the scissors (and Sly’s reaction to the idea) was enough to convince him, and Aoba soon found himself climbing the tree to save his brother.

“Heh, it’s like that kid story. ‘ _Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair!_ ’ and all that.” Aoba chose to ignore Noiz’s teasing in favor of making sure that the branches he was stepping on would hold him. It was probably fine, if Sly had made it up there, but it wasn’t like he had a lot of experience. It didn’t seem this high up from the ground…

“Haah, made it.” He sat down on a thicker branch next to Sly and inwardly congratulated himself on not falling to his death.

“Finally, now get me out, I’m starting to get a serious headache here.”

“Would it kill you to say please?”

“Yes.”

Aoba would’ve pressed the issue, but could see tears forming in the corners of his eyes, and his scalp was starting to turn red from the tension between branch and hair. So he just shook his head and got to work. The knot was pretty well attached to the branch, and he winced at how it must feel to have his hair to be so solidly stuck like that. Sly probably had no more than three inches of give to move his head around, and Aoba almost forgave him for the use of the word ‘emergency’ earlier.

He worked carefully but quickly, not wanting to draw out the process too much, but also not wanting to cause his twin any more pain than he was already feeling. Piece by piece, the hair loosened and fell back to rest between Sly’s shoulder blades. It was tangled and messy, but nothing that a few hours with Koujaku couldn’t fix. Unwinding one last piece, Aoba let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.

“Alright, Sly. You’re out.” Sly raised his hand to the back of his head where he been attached to the tree not 5 minutes ago and felt for the damage. He grimaced both at the tenderness of the skin and the scratchy, knotted state the tree had left his hair in.

“That fucking hurt, god damn. I’m never climbing a tree again.” Aoba laughed lightly at the declaration. He vaguely wondered if this was a normal thing, if Sly made a habit of climbing trees for fun when Aoba wasn’t around to entertain him.

“Whatever you say Sly. Let’s get down now, yeah?” Sly nodded his assent and looked around for a branch to start his descent from. Aoba did the same. How had he gotten up here again? That branch looked far too weak to hold his weight, and that one was too far away to reach, and…

“Well, shit.” Sly’s voice mirrored Aoba’s thoughts exactly. He may have managed to detangle Sly from the tree, but it looked like the tree wasn’t so keen on letting them go just yet. Aoba took a moment to let the reality sink in, and turned to Sly with a blank expression.

“We’re stuck.”

And all of a sudden, Aoba began to laugh, as though that was most hilarious thing that could’ve happened. At first Sly looked shocked at Aoba’s outburst, but then joined him in amusement and soon their combined laughter grew loud enough to disturb the neighboring houses. As their laughter slowly died down, Aoba tried to get Noiz’s attention, as he was still sitting in the grass, looking amused at the idiot twins who managed to get themselves stuck in a tree. Noiz noticed Aoba’s waving and tilted his head to show he was listening.

“Hey Noiz, I’m sure this is fun to watch and all, but can you help us now?” Aoba was still giggling lightly, but he really did want to get out of there soon. Trees didn’t make the comfiest of seats. Noiz considered it for a moment and then shook his head.

“Nah.” Aoba gave him a look that said ‘are you serious right now?’ and Noiz just shrugged and turned back to his coil.

“I told you he’s useless.” Sly sounded resigned. Aoba just huffed. “Guess we have to wait for Mink or the hippo to get home. Clear’s babysitting again.” Aoba groaned and leaned back against the trunk.

“Might as well get comfortable I guess.” He closed his eyes. He had gotten over the height pretty quickly and wasn’t nervous about falling anymore. “Hey, Sly. Why were you up here in the first place?”

Sly was quiet for a moment, which was strange, but he answered soon enough. “Dunno. Guess I was curious how far I could see from here.” Aoba hummed at the surprisingly serious answer.

“And? How far _can_ you see?”

Sly looked outward across the roofs of the Old Resident District and tried to estimate. It didn’t work very well, since a lot of the buildings were still taller than the tree they were in. “Well, I don’t know how far exactly, but I can almost see Aoyagi and that one really big ugly building with the tag art no one can read anymore. There’s Heibon, or the street it’s on at least, and I think that’s the grocery store Granny likes. Black Needle’s too far away though. So I don’t know, somewhere between Heibon and Black Needle. That’s how far.” Sly looked back at him and Aoba tried to quickly rearrange his expression from a fond smile into something less embarrassing. He noticed that he had subconsciously leaned forward a little, so he coughed and leaned back again.

Then he felt something soft and warm on the corner of his mouth. “Thanks, by the way.”

Aoba was blushing already. “Huh?! You just- Noiz is right there!” Where had that even come from? Sly just shrugged.

“Yeah but he’s not paying attention or anything, so it’s fine.”

“It is not fine! Are you trying to get us found out?!” Aoba couldn’t tell if he was flushed from embarrassment or anger. Probably a bit of both. Though he calmed down considerably at the hurt look on Sly’s face. “Shit, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to snap at you.”

Sly looked back towards the city. “It’s fine. You’re right, it’d be a hassle to get caught anyway.” Aoba puffed out his cheeks at his saddened tone and quickly looked back to Noiz. His face was blocked by his coil screens and Aoba deemed that distraction good enough.

“Sly.” Sly turned and before he could speak Aoba grabbed his face and kissed him straight on the mouth. It was quick and silent, something to tie them over until they had some more privacy, which Aoba was looking forward to more than he’d like to admit. “Don’t look so sad like that.” Sly looked shocked for a moment before his surprise melted into contentment.

“Okay.” Sly mirrored Aoba’s position and leaned back against the trunk. “Anyway, like I said, thanks. For ditching school and untangling me or whatever.” Sly pouted at the smile Aoba gave him.

“You’re welcome, Sly.”

* * *

Ten minutes later, they were finally saved.

“Oi. Seragaki.” Both twins swiveled around to face the man who addressed them. Mink hadn’t thought it necessary to give separate names to Sly and Aoba, so both were referred to by their family name. It usually wasn’t a problem. The look on Mink’s face was an odd mix of amusement and disbelief, which seemed fitting for the situation. Instead of continuing to speak, he set down his bag of leftover trinkets that hadn’t been sold yet, and moved to the base of the tree. 

“Whoa, whoa, you’re not gonna shake us down like fruits or something right?” Sly looked a little bit nervous, and Aoba couldn’t blame him. He wouldn’t put it beyond Mink to shake them down and catch them, and honestly he was probably strong and agile enough to make it work. But Aoba would still rather not attempt such a feat, and thought it safer to take the long way.

Mink just blinked at him. “Of course not. I’m coming to get you.” The twins watched him ascend the tree skillfully until he was just below where they were perched. He extended an arm out towards Aoba who was the closest. Aoba just stared. “Come here.” He jerked his chin as though Aoba might think to move the other way instead. He was a little flustered, but did as he was told and shuffled along the branch until he was within reach of the offered arm. Mink maneuvered them both until Aoba was no longer sitting on the branch, and instead his butt was firmly planted on Mink’s bicep. It was solid and sturdy, which weren’t words Aoba would usually think to use to describe a human being. “Hold on to my shoulders. And don’t let go.” Aoba could only nod. Mink was ridiculously strong, he already knew that, but knowing it and feeling it up close and personal were two very different things. He tried not to be obvious about his observations though. From his position he could feel Mink’s shoulder and arm muscles extending and contracting as he lowered them down. It was a weird feeling, but he didn’t hate it. And then they had made it to the ground and Mink gently set him on his feet.

Once he had gotten his balance, Mink was back at the base of the tree and climbing once more to reach Sly. Aoba had a better vantage point from which to observe Mink from down here, and he planned on fully (but subtly) utilizing it. He watched as his back muscles bulged and defined themselves further as he climbed the tree for the second time. Sly and Mink repeated the same actions as Mink had with Aoba and the look on Sly’s face told him that he noticed exactly what Aoba had a few minutes ago.

“You two look like high-schoolers with a crush.” Aoba jumped at the voice right next to his ear. When had Noiz gotten up?

“W-what are you talking about?” Aoba was embarrassed to have been caught ogling his roommate, but really, who could blame him…

“I suppose if they feel as nice as they look it makes sense.” Aoba rolled his eyes as Mink and Sly made their way over, but didn’t respond. “Ah, but you already have someone. I nearly forgot. You guys aren’t nearly as subtle as you think you are.” At that Aoba’s eyes widened and his cheeks darkened again. He focused everything he had on making himself look and sound normal.

“I still don’t know what you’re talking about.” Noiz snorted at that, but thankfully dropped the subject as when Sly started to look at them funny.

“Well as fun as that was, let’s never do it again, yeah? What’s for dinner, I’m starved.” Sly made his way into the house with all the confidence of someone who hadn’t just been rescued from a tree. Twice, if Aoba wanted to be specific. But he was feeling pretty hungry himself, and he didn’t mention it, instead attempting to dismiss Noiz’s earlier comments from his mind as he followed everyone inside.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Concerned-father Mink is my favorite Mink.


End file.
